Navigation systems for motor vehicles are already sufficiently known in the prior art. Using a suitable position sensor, particularly a GPS sensor, a current geodetic position of the motor vehicle can be determined. A user interface, usually a commonly employed man-machine interface of the motor vehicle, allows selection of a navigation destination, after which the control unit of the navigation system determines an optimal route following specific criteria partly changeable by the user. The driver is guided to its navigation destination via correspondingly issued instructions. For future, semi-autonomous or fully autonomous driving motor vehicles, a complete autopilot guidance with the help of a navigation system is feasible and planned.
To facilitate the navigation, digital map data are used by modern navigation systems that describe available regions of the road network, passable and thus reachable by the motor vehicle. Accordingly, navigation destinations are defined by address information within the map data by default, which means the navigation destination is usually a location contained in the map data passable by the motor vehicle. A guide to geodetic positions outside of the road network described by the map data is therefore normally not provided.
Recently, there were also proposed modern navigation systems, in which a navigation destination must not be entered necessarily via a dedicated user interface of the navigation system, but may be accepted also from other sources external to the navigation system. Such a destination data record may originate, for example, from an Internet source, for example, from an online map system, an online tour guide and the like. Therefore, the user may select a navigation destination externally from the navigation system, for example, a so-called Point of Interest (POI), which is usually determined by a geodetic position, i.e. a position in a geodetic coordinate system that is also the basis of digital map data for comparison with a current geodetic position of the motor vehicle.
The destination data record must be converted into a navigation destination evaluable by the navigation system, wherein the geodetic position is used in the destination data record with known procedures, after which such an address contained in the destination data record may also be optionally another mailing address or the like, that may not necessarily comply with the destination described by the geodetic position. Therefore, it has been proposed to use the geodetic position (often referred to as geo-coordinates) to define the navigation destination. The geodetic position does not necessarily describe a location reachable by the motor vehicle or describe a meaningful access to the destination, since it is usually given out roughly, for example, as the center of previously developed land or the like. Now, known approaches propose, to find the location nearest to the position in the destination data record reachable by the motor vehicle, i.e. an address in described by the map data road network. For this, for example, the distances of the geodetic position to various roads existing around the position in a destination region may be considered, therefore, the decision is ultimately made towards the road. The shortest distance is selected and the corresponding position along the associated road forms the address, which is used as a navigation destination.
However, it was found that particularly if the place described by the destination data record is a larger area, the variant described will not always guide the vehicle to an access to the area, since this may be located at an entirely different position, for example, at the complete opposite side of the block with building developments surrounded by roads. Thus indeed, the user will be guided into the rough surrounding of the destination described by the destination data record, however, he must then find the rest of the way by himself possibly complicated by certain traffic regulations. This is undesirable and may not meet the user's expectations.
Particularly, problems also arise when no house number is present in the immediate vicinity of this road at the point of the shortest distance to a road, so that the navigation target then comprises the address only up the street without the house number and significant deviations occur from the actual destination.
EP 1 568 970 A1 relates to a method of inputting destination data by means of a mobile terminal. Here, the data input into a navigation system should be improved by exploiting the databases present anyway in mobile terminals, which contain information on individuals and organizations that are of interest to the corresponding user. Address data serve as input, wherein destination data are to be derived from these address data, to which the navigation system may guide. The plausibility of the transmitted address may be verified by an address database and corrected, if necessary.
US 2013/325329 A1 relates to the update of geographic data in a database based on user input, wherein a name and a position of a point of interest (POI) are received, thus an information tuple. This information tuple consisting of position and name is compared to information tuples in the database to the effect, if both the name and the position match. If this is the case, a reliability value (confidence value) is increased, if this is not the case, the POI is stored as the new POI, at least temporarily.
DE 10 2005 016 214 A1 discloses a navigation system and a navigation method with the ability to import and export of special destinations and navigation maps. In a digitized region, addresses are stored with their associated geographical coordinates in the navigation information. For example, from a digital signature in Outlook, destinations may be imported via a bidirectional interface. If the destination cannot be directly driven to, a map section around the destination is displayed.